Yet another Gallic guide to bringing up polite, well-behaved children has been
published - so what do French mothers do that British ones don't?

When it comes to international affairs, we dismiss the French as cheese-eating surrender monkeys. When it comes to their politicians, we snigger at former president Nicolas Sarkozy and his Cuban heels. And as for their pop music … But start discussing parenting, however, and – mon Dieu! – the Gallic superiority is unbearable.

While we agonise over our enfants terribles, across the Channel, chic mamans preside over impeccably behaved children who like nothing more than tucking into seven-course tasting menus, who never smear mud on their Petit Bateau dresses, and who can certainly never be found lying on their backs in the middle of the street refusing point blank to move until the promise of a Starbucks babyccino (that’s warm milk with chocolate sprinkles to the uninitiated) has been extracted.

A new book – Why French Children Don’t Talk Back – following hot on the heels of the recent bestsellers, Why French Children Don’t Throw Food, French Kids Eat Everything and Bringing Up Bébé, is enough to make the average British mother who frequently resorts to using a Peppa Pig magazine as a bribe feel totally inadequate.

This latest book is the work of a Brooklyn writer, Catherine Crawford, who, having compared her unruly daughters to those of an expat French friend, decided to adopt a French approach to her mothering. It can be summed up in the following three rules: you, the parent, are le Chef (the Chief) and your word goes; if there is no blood [when a child falls down], don’t get up, and – most importantly – drink more wine.

“We are so focused on the child here in the US, and I think it’s the same in the UK,” says Crawford. “It’s different in France. What’s good for the mother is good for the family – and that approach sounds wonderful to me.” Ah yes. It is easy to see why the French approach to motherhood is so seductive initially: you can have your crème caramel and eat it. Compared to Britain, where if a pregnant woman comes within sniffing distance of a ripe Brie she faces social ostracism, in France, Crawford says, a mother-to-be will often be told by her doctors that wine is fine if it’s accompanied by a meal, and will be routinely marched to the front of the queue in any shop (presumably to spend her pregnancy subsidy of 150 euros a month).

Post birth, French women are famously given pelvic floor rehabilitation and abdominal therapy to help restore their figures. And – much to the envy of the sleep-deprived, baby-sick-stained mothers in Britain – the French expect their babies to sleep through the night from two months (they employ le pause, which means they do not immediately pick up a crying baby, but allow it to self-soothe if possible). Added to that, they stop breastfeeding early and have no qualms in going back to work, seeing themselves as women as well as mothers. Remember soignée French justice minister Rachida Dati, who returned to work just five days after giving birth?

So what is the theory behind continental parenting? Crawford – like Pamela Druckerman, author of Why French Children Don’t Throw Food – discovered that French mothers employ a mixture of strict boundaries and laissez-faire. Manners are paramount: even tinies are expected to greet their elders with a polite bonjour and kiss on the cheeks. Bad temper is not tolerated: Crawford claims the “terrible twos” do not exist as a concept in France because of the French mother’s view that her word is law.

In fact, any French mother hearing such emollient phrases in a restaurant as “Why do you want to jump on the table, Liam?” or “Coco, please try to explain your anger towards the green beans” would be incredulous.

French mothers, says Crawford, also make their children wait for attention if they are otherwise engaged talking to another adult. They have no hesitation in telling their offspring if they are being boring. “I don’t humiliate my children in this way,” adds Crawford. “I go half-French. But if there’s a really asinine story, I might say 'Tell me something else!’, but most importantly I don’t applaud it.”

At the centre of the French parent-child relationship is food. There is no demarcation between what adults and children eat (le fish finger and baked beans would be greeted with incomprehension by maman and enfant alike) and how they eat. Children are expected to use adult utensils; Crawford says she saw three-year-olds making vinaigrette, and under-sevens sitting through a three-course meal with no problem. The key is that the family sits down together for a meal on a daily basis, respecting the food they eat, and respecting the time they spend with each other while eating.

Yet, combined with these strict rules, the French also do not engage themselves with each minutiae of their child’s life. For them, a mother standing by the climbing frame, either applauding her child’s skill (“Well DONE, sweetheart! You slid down the slide! That’s brilliant”), or swooping to pick up the child as soon as it cries, is ridiculous. As Crawford’s French friend Lucie put it, pouring Crawford another glass of wine post dinner when Crawford’s younger daughter Daphne was throwing a tantrum for attention: “If there’s no blood, don’t get up.”

What Crawford – and Druckerman – do admit, though, is that there is another aspect of the French approach. La fessée – roughly translated as a good spank – is still seen as a normal part of parenting; something that would be seen as unacceptable by most British parents today.

And while we may envy the French mothers who slip back into their size 10 jeans within weeks of birth (indeed, as another Gallic guide notoriously declared, French Women Don’t Get Fat), British mothers aren’t under the same social pressure to lose the baby weight. Finally, a lot of the French parenting ideals would not be attainable without the well-funded, state-run nurseries that take children from an early age.

Leaving corporal punishment aside, the French attitude in general is one that can make sense, agrees Dr Amanda Gummer, a psychologist specialising in play and child development. “I don’t like to generalise and say the French get it right, any more than say there’s an upper-class or working-class way parents parent,” she says. “But it is true that if you pay attention to bad behaviour, it encourages it – if it’s safe to do so, you should ignore it.

“We do have a culture of instant gratification, and something we could learn from the Continent is to be less pressured on time. If you want children to sit at a table, eat using a knife and fork and make conversation, then the French approach – sitting with their children for an hour and a half for a meal – will work in a way quick fixes don’t.”

Yet, hang on a minute. This all sounds vaguely familiar. Children who don’t speak unless they are spoken to, who eat up what they are given and like it, who speak respectfully to adults, who go out to play for hours without their parents hovering over them… well, on reflection, I’m not so sure the French can really claim credit for those ideas.

Substitute a cream bun for a croissant, bangers and mash for boeuf bourguignon, and – sacré bleu! – it all becomes clear. The French have ripped off our Fifties approach to child rearing and called it their own. Bloody chic…

'Why French Children Don’t Talk Back’ by Catherine Crawford (John Murray) is available to pre-order from Telegraph Books at £12.99 + £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk